


Cow People from the Year 2300

by The_Exile



Category: Original Work
Genre: Aliens, Coffee, Cows, Gen, Humor, Learning About the Consequences of Your Life in the Future, References to Drugs, Surreal, Swearing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-28
Updated: 2018-12-28
Packaged: 2019-09-29 05:06:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,528
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17197070
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/The_Exile/pseuds/The_Exile
Summary: Now it was 9am, he'd finished his morning coffee and the mooing was still there outside his window...





	Cow People from the Year 2300

**Author's Note:**

  * For [chantefable](https://archiveofourown.org/users/chantefable/gifts).



Now it was 9am, he'd finished his morning coffee and the mooing was still there outside his window. If anything, it had grown louder. He still couldn't completely discount the possibility that this was all a particularly vivid and messed-up dream. Around one third of his remembered dreams already involved coffee. The buzz in the back of his mind, in the forefront of his ears, in the air, focussing his mind, softening the edges with static, blocking out things he didn't need to know about, all seemed real, maybe more vivid than usual. In fact, he didn't remember taking any cocaine but it occurred to him that he should check. After all, he was STILL hearing phantom cows apparently surrounding his house in large numbers, their lowing cries unnervingly organised, more like some kind of sonorous chanting than normal mindless animal droning. 

It'll all come back round again, those kooky protestors had been yelling at him during the interview, humanity won't last all that much longer at the rate they were poisoning themselves, then it'd be some other animal's turn in the spotlight. Karma being what it was, it'd be cows, it was bound to happen. Then we'd get what was coming to us. We'd learn from the perspective of a lesser creature why we shouldn't teach them that its okay to treat other species like shit.

Pure drug-addled fantasy, and yet it was the sort that got into your head, wheedled its way into your dreams when you were an overstretched businessman assaulted on all sides by both the most ruthless rivals in a notoriously cut-throat industry and an increasingly violent gang of eco-saboteurs. 

Christ, he just needed one full night's sleep. These days it seemed more of a fantasy than the stupid cow uprising.

He turned on the radio, tuning into the smooth jazz that always calmed his nerves a little. Except that today he couldn't get a signal, only horrendous crackling, buzzing noises. Damn unreliable piece of junk, what did he even pay for? Okay, he told himself, at least this is nothing new, you have these problems every day. Just go and eat a proper breakfast, not just coffee. And not beef. 

Downstairs, he opened the curtains to admit the sunlight, revealing that a herd of cows really had migrated into his garden. Mooing ceaselessly, they had destroyed his topiary and rock garden, stomped through his pond and probably killed all the fish. There was probably literal bull crap all over his lawn, the bits that hadn't been eaten already. He swore at the top of his lungs, then poured himself another coffee and drained it. Suddenly, he was exactly sure of what had happened. Those bastard protestors had somehow found out where he lived and sneaked a herd of cows into his garden. 

Grabbing a gun from a drawer, he considered running at the cows and expressing his emotions honestly at them. Then it occurred to him that this many cows, if panicked or even made hostile, might be dangerous. Maybe he should try and contact the cops. He reached for the phone, which was dead. No fucking surprise there. It was making the same noise as the radio.

A noise that was growing louder, becoming more coherent, even though he'd put the phone back on the hook and turned the radio off...

A noise that sounded a lot like a distorted, mechanical version of the sound that the cows made, in unnaturally perfect unison, as they all stared at him with big, soulless eyes, as cows did. Except the look they flashed him was one that contained too much of a glimmer, far too much intelligence and purpose. Also, those tags that the farmers put in their ears to identify them, were they meant to have electronics in them that pulsed red lights like that in time to the noise now somehow coming over the microwave as well?

"Our most holy creator," pronounced the first voice over the radio, low-pitched and ponderous, still barely tuned in, "Our mission has succeeded. We have reached you. It is truly you. Now we have a second chance."

He blinked and reached for the coffee machine again.

"This cannot be our creator," another voice this time, higher pitched, as if coming from a younger cow, "He is an uncow."

"Did I not insist that earlier texts existed, wherein the creator was depicted as an uncow with two legs? These were the dominant race, once. Most historians agree..."

"He is just staring stupidly at us. He has no divine glow, no halo or wings, is not stirring a cauldron of blessed awakening elixir. Could this be the wrong one?"

"No, we followed the instructions to the letter..."

"Look, what did I take, when did I take it and what do you want in exchange for it going away now?" he snapped.

"See, he answers, he knows all," concluded the first cow somehow, "Divine Creator, the situation has become dire. The civilisation you birthed is about to fall."

"Oh, come on, tell him a bit more than that, there have been five major cataclysms and we've been trying for hundreds of years to reach him," the second cow complained.

"Look, we don't have long, the ritual circle won't hold forever," snapped a third, much older cow.

"Fine, fine, insult the God's intelligence and turn him against you, why don't you," the first cow sighed, "Ahem. As you no doubt already know, in your infinite and benevolent wisdom, we are from the year 2300AD. Currently, we are losing a great war. All will be darkness soon, the planet conquered by the aliens who had been abducting us for so long, only some of us every now and then in remote areas, often the Unawakened. But now they know enough, and they had begun their invasion in force... Try as we might, we cannot hold out against a full planetary invasion fleet..."

"And... um... what do you want me to do about... the alien cow invasion?" he scratched his head. Wherever this trip or dream or whatever was going, he didn't really have a choice but to go along with it. It wasn't like acting normally was working enough to wake him up. His ordinary life probably wasn't ordinary enough any more.

The second cow immediately gasped in shock, "Holy One, the invaders are not cows! This is the exact problem! They are... SHEEP!"

"Oh, yeah. Sheep. I agree, disgusting things, mutton's far too stringy," he sighed, "But I still can't help you fight any alien spaceships. I'm just a guy."

"If nothing else, at this point in time, surely you must still have many cauldrons of awakening fluid left over?" prompted the first cow.

"I tell you, this isn't him, this uncow doesn't know a thing..."

"Wait, this 'awakening fluid'..." he snapped his fingers, "You guys want some coffee, right? I've always got plenty of that, you should just have asked plain!"

"'Coffee' is the name of the substance that altered our very genetic make-up until we became self-aware for the first time, all those years ago?" asked the second cow, "'Coffee?' Seriously? That just sounds so... anticlimactic..."

"Don't be like that, it may be the holiest of words in the language of uncows!"

"Sure is," he agreed, "Look, I don't like sharing this stuff, but its highest quality and should last you a while... wait, should cows even have coffee?"

"If you require facilities to make more, we still have your laboratory intact. It has been preserved as our most sacred shrine, the very birthplace of our civilisation."

"Um, you realise my company doesn't make coffee, right? We mostly make pesticides..." 

"'Pesticides' was the word written on the side of the shrine, before it faded away. See? I told you it really was him," the first cow said with a distinct verbal equivalent of a bovine smirk, "And what were the words written below it?"

"'Investing in the Future'," the second cow sighed, "And now... is that future. We even have a way to transport you to it. We're running out of time, though, we're fairly sure they have a tracking device on us somewhere, so you should try and finish up that 'coffee' and come back with us quickly."

"Unless you're in the middle of Awakening us right now," stipulated the third cow, her tone grave, "We're really trying not to cause any kind of horrible time paradoxes and erase our own existence, you know. We haven't trampled or eaten any butterflies, even though there's one on my nose and its driving me up the wall."

He sighed. He was now fairly sure he had an idea of where this whole story was going. Well, whatever kind of trip this was, he was now sure that going along with the ride would be much preferable to having to wake up and find out he was late for work and people were yelling at him on the radio again. Draining his coffee and popping a few painkillers, he tucked his handgun away in his suit jacket pocket, then unlocked the door and walked into the strange, pale moonlight.


End file.
